This is a funny place.
While trying to be alternative, it has its own norms that aren't really that alternative. Or sort of alternative in the sense that black is to white. Different but not free form. There is a certain way of thinking and a certain set of norms. The woman (because the site is about women - this is not to say or not say anything about men) are largely fairly stereotypical in their own ways. There is, upon fleeting observation, a uniform, just a different set of clothes to make it up.
When I was in college one of my best friends and his sig other were politically non-monogamous and bi. I think both now have fairly traditional relationships, but there world was different. They rebelled, not openly because that would be a lot of work, against both the stereotypes of, for example, heterosexual and homosexual worlds. I found the notion of multiple partners, or more than one gender, quite confusing but the openness to it refreshing. A non-conformity in non-conformity.
Dare to be different. But so many people are different in predictable ways.
A friend recently had a baby, now two months old:
Ultimately that is what it is all about. Identity poltiics, sexual politics, left-right politics, all are just politics; as a truck driver once said to me during a quasi-argument - "just words."
And so it is.
My bi, non-monogamous friend was very liberal and apparently a good politician. He was President of Student Government at Michigan (no small feat) as an undergrad, or, as he called it, "stupid government." Unfortunately, Congress is not better. But as I pass through the world the number of places that resemble in a serious way the group dynamics of high school (as here to an extent) are much larger in number than those that have mature folk. Iconoclasm is no longer necessary since categories tend to dissolve as people tend to become more confident about who they are without reference to the personhood of others. And that is humanizing and conforting.
Interesting, until my grandmother died recently, one of the nice things about visiting her in her assisted care facility was that all the people she lived with were so nice. I don't think it was an accident. I think that most people (not all, but most) become more caring as they grow older. I know I fall down on this score.
In college and especially law school, I was infatuated with just what is different. Now I have become much more grounded. I am who I am.
How does the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson end:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
While trying to be alternative, it has its own norms that aren't really that alternative. Or sort of alternative in the sense that black is to white. Different but not free form. There is a certain way of thinking and a certain set of norms. The woman (because the site is about women - this is not to say or not say anything about men) are largely fairly stereotypical in their own ways. There is, upon fleeting observation, a uniform, just a different set of clothes to make it up.
When I was in college one of my best friends and his sig other were politically non-monogamous and bi. I think both now have fairly traditional relationships, but there world was different. They rebelled, not openly because that would be a lot of work, against both the stereotypes of, for example, heterosexual and homosexual worlds. I found the notion of multiple partners, or more than one gender, quite confusing but the openness to it refreshing. A non-conformity in non-conformity.
Dare to be different. But so many people are different in predictable ways.
A friend recently had a baby, now two months old:
Ultimately that is what it is all about. Identity poltiics, sexual politics, left-right politics, all are just politics; as a truck driver once said to me during a quasi-argument - "just words."
And so it is.
My bi, non-monogamous friend was very liberal and apparently a good politician. He was President of Student Government at Michigan (no small feat) as an undergrad, or, as he called it, "stupid government." Unfortunately, Congress is not better. But as I pass through the world the number of places that resemble in a serious way the group dynamics of high school (as here to an extent) are much larger in number than those that have mature folk. Iconoclasm is no longer necessary since categories tend to dissolve as people tend to become more confident about who they are without reference to the personhood of others. And that is humanizing and conforting.
Interesting, until my grandmother died recently, one of the nice things about visiting her in her assisted care facility was that all the people she lived with were so nice. I don't think it was an accident. I think that most people (not all, but most) become more caring as they grow older. I know I fall down on this score.
In college and especially law school, I was infatuated with just what is different. Now I have become much more grounded. I am who I am.
How does the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson end:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Having said that, I also think there should be more alternative sets where the alternativeness comes rather from the photography than from the model. But thats just my unimportant opinion
Have a good day!